Userplan/Woodland survival tactic
Requirements For this tactic you'll need: - Both a Melee weapon (preferable an axe as they can both crack skulls, but also get wood for a fire or shelter. Crowbars are an more common suggestion, but mainly because they are useful while Scavenging, this doesn't apply in the forests.) and a ranged weapon of some sort (preferably something with reuseable ammo, like a crossbow, or bow if you had enough training with these.) - A knife, preferable carbon or normal steel, carbon is easier to sharpen, but is very malleable and will dull more easily too. (Solid knives may be favorable, they not only can preform the same tasks as a pocket knife, but also double as a last resort, and they are better for skinning and butchering than most knives.) - Food and water for a couple of days, you will most likely need to travel to a favorable spot, or just in case your hunt isn't very succesful at times - Basic knowledge of Hunting and Fishing as these will become your primairy food source. - Some survival expirence and knowledge of how to make a fire. - Decent cardio. Without, you will find it hard to track prey, or run for Zombies. Optional supplies - A tent, if you can't find one, don't sweat it, if you have some survival experince, you should be able to set up some kind of shelter. - For the bowmen, a quiver or some simple protective gear might be helpful. - Matches or a lighter. - General protective gear, keep in mind that some of it may be too heavy for use, try to stick to leather gear. See Armour for more information. - Other survivors, this tactic can work as a Lone wolf, but others can keep an eye on you, prevent insanity, help you if you get wounded, and even put you down if you get bit. Some hunting tactics may also work beter in groups. - Knowledge of farming, this will only apply if you want to settle down, but therefore it's useful to have it anyway. - A chasing for your knife, it will make it easier to keep your knife sharp, and also prevents wear and tear on your belt. What to do. The woodland tactic is quite simple, and has only a few steps: Step 0: This is before the outbreak. Learn how to handle weapons, how to hunt, how to create a fire, how to make a shelter etc. Improve your cardio, locate the closest woodland, and if you really want to be a prepper, get a good Bug-out bag for the job. Step 1: This is the moment just before or just after a global outbreak, Get some survivors and go to the woodland you located or just go there as soon as possible, if you intent to be a lone wolf. Once you are there this plan can go two ways. Step 2: Wolf pack This step is recommended if you are in a small group (1-15 survivors, you included) It is a pretty straight forward plan, stay on the move, settle for mabye a few days if you find a nice spot to fish or hunt, and move on again to prevent getting caught by zombies. Keep in mind that living like this can be very hard from time to time, and if the hunt goes bad for a couple of days in a row, you and/or your group may weaken beyond a certain point where you can't hunt properly anymore, when this happens it could mean your end, as the group will almost certainly fall apart, or, if you are alone, you will become incapable of sustaining yourself. It is possible to get over this point, if you are capable of reaching a village or city. When you have reached the point of starvation, but reach a village, try to stay stealthy and sneak into a building. See Bases for the best buildings to get food from. Keep in mind that going to a village or city nullifies the entire purpose of this tactic/plan, which is being self-relient and preventing having to fight off Bandits or zombies. Should you choose to do so anyway, getting in without alerting zombies is nice, but getting out without doing so may be even more important, even though you can now run away from them (though, if you were weaken by lack of food, this may not be possible) you will still get some zombies into the woods, increasing the threat there. Step 2/3: Stone age settlement This step is recommended if you either used the Wolf pack tactic and the morale in your group is low because everyone is sick of running, or when you have found a nice location for a settlement. Depending on the size you will need only a few to prehaps atleast fifty survivors to maintain your settlement. A important thing to remember is that you will need additional tools etc. to create a settlement. For a settlement to trive you will need atleast: - A couple of saws, with these people can cut logs to length. (you CAN use axes but this will cause you to lose more material, have way more inaccurate cuts and it just dulls the axes you may need in battle. - Hammers and nails, without, keeping a building together may be kinda hard. (Screws can also be used, although you will need an electrical drill.) - Shovels. Optional, but diging a trench around your settlement/camp can help protect against both raiders and zombies. If it is deep enough people, zombies and even cars or tanks can get stuck in a trench. If you trow the dirt on "your" side of the trench it may provide decent cover from bullets or arrows, and storming a hill is always more diffecult, whether one is a zombie or a bandit. - Seeds, they are capable of growing into a plentyful farm, woodlands rarely have poor soil, so plants should grow nicely. If there is a river nearby, and you did get/bring shovels you can create a watering system, so you don't have to water the plants all the time. - Someone who is capable of designing and/or constructing buildings. - A few people who you can trust with your life, assuming you are going to be the leader, you will have to keep order and only those who you can trust are going to be capable of helping you with this task. Once you have all these supplies you should look for a favorable spot, mabye you think: "Where we are right now is fine already". This may or may not be the case, a decent spot for a settlement has: - A water source, preferable a stream/river, as these will wash away the zombies killed inside them. Solanum survives for only a short time without a host, but in still water the corpse(s) could still cause other diseases. Also keep in mind that the virus may not be like solanum at all and it might survive, or even trive outside its host. - Plenty of wildlife. This is not Minecraft or some other game where food can grow within a day, most plants will take a lot of time, generaly a few months, to grow, to prevent starvation you will still have to hunt for atleast a few more months, after that you should be capable of relying on your farms mostly. - Strong trees, Assuming you are going to build houses, towers, prehaps walls. If any of these apply (and yes they most likely do) you will need stong wood. Pine can be usefull as it will start cracking before it breaks, but it is not as strong as for example an oak. Stong wood is also going to be required for creating weapons, you would not want your makeshift spear to break when you most need it, would you? How you are going to build your buildings is yours to decide, a Tree House can be great, but if there are too many zombies you may get stuck up there, so if you do build treehouses as new homes, be sure you have either plenty of ammo to shoot them, or an escape route. Conclusion All in all it is may be a good tactic for those who are physically strong and have enough knowledge for survival in the woods, although the fact that you need to be near/in a forest to use it may destroy any use of it if you live in the far colder or warmer zones, or just in a massive city. It also isn't very fit to combat bandits, as it is recommended to get a tecnological fallback, so you can rely on the forest itself for new weapons and prehaps armour. Any large enough group of bandits with guns CAN wipe you out, although, after a few years you and your group will most likely actually have become superior in physical strenght and speed and you settled down somewhere you will probably know the woods much better than the bandits, considering the various hunting trips. Category:User Plans Category:User plan/surviving undead outbreaks